In Problem Solving, I use rationality to work with empirical data to come up with workable solutions. I then test these hypotheses and use the results to make a better solution depending on the time constraints and objectives. I am all about practical solutions, and it really gets to me when someone starts using Philosophy to suppress and manipulate valid evidence to their arbitrary purposes.
If you watched the presidential debate on December 2, you will notice some key problem-solving abilities lacking in many of the candidates. Particularly, observing most of presidentiables deny the existence of evidence of concepts that have long been proven, like Overpopulation, and how most of them cannot even think rationally. It is very evident when most of them would operate on removing a symptom, instead of using political science to find its root cause and affect a practical solution.
One may laugh at the fact that many of these politicians are not critical thinkers, but what is a worse realization is wondering how fewer are problem solvers. Some philosophers may flaunt their critical thinking, but many self proclaimed “critical thinkers” simply foster inaction.
These “critical thinkers” often engage in debates as a way to make them think they are actually contributing when in reality they are doing the opposite. They are “teaching the Controversy” and mixing rotten with the good data. They also make the problem seem more insurmountable, fostering the impression that no worthwhile solution is small enough to be practical, but big enough to change the status quo. So they are stuck on their armchairs lecturing and trying to flaunt their intellectual superiority. Who wants to listen to that crap? What they are doing is how non-theists view prayer.
The two points, Contemplative Inaction and Irrationality, are manifestations of self interest through denial. One definite juncture I have observed is that their choice of “action” is a result of the cost they are not willing to pay. So instead of paying, they deny the train of thought and action that lead towards its rational conclusion.
Denial is something we all do, because we need a certain tolerance to truth that will upset our internal balance. There is actually a time variable involved when introducing information to an established equilibrium. The problem with denial is when it overcomes our necessity to adapt and evolve in light of reason. This is true in my observed conclusions about these denialists.
I hope that when people read this, the can observe their own choices and see if they are caught up in their own denial that is preventing them from evolving. Another hope is that people will want to get the momentum of action, testing out their ideas and not being discouraged by failure.
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Me and my friend have been arguing about an issue comparable to this! Now I realize that I used to be appropriate. lol! Thank you with the data you publish….
well, to make it brief then.
i want to see a succinct definition of overpopulation. i have yet to find it . anywhere.
i cant seem to comment anymore.
1) thanks for the apology.
– Its not a problem.
"2) lets skip this."
– Fine
"3) discussion of “overpopulation”
first. i’m NOT trying to sabotage you. i dont even KNOW you.
dude, you dont have to educate me, or tell me about all the stuff u know.
i just want to know about ur take on overpopulation. i promise to ask only interesting, non-trivial, clarificatory questions, if needed.
yun lang."
Why ask me? For all I know I'm feeding you BS? Why not read the report or Contest me with another source?
" ok. gets ko na. sustainable NOT in the size of the population, but u use this definition:
” its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources.”
OK. you futher clarify…
“Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty.”
aha! i think THIS is what you define overpopulation as…
if adding a child will cause a family to become poor (enter some definition of poor here), the family is OVERPOPULATED.
OK. this is a defnition for a family. this is an OK definition for a family.
what about the definition for the country? recall this is what the candidates were talking about — “Is the philippines overpopulated?”
how many families that fit the critieria makes the philippines overpopulated?
if not the number/% of families, what then?
another way to put it — how can we translate your definition of family overpopulation to the scale of a whole country.
one way, is to assume the whole country is 1 family. but this goes back to my questions from way earlier…
" what poverty rate will make for an overpopulated country?"
– Yes there is a simple answer to a Complex Problem like Poverty. Why didn't anyone think of that?
– Simple answer to all the segmented questions – all the families that are dragged down to a level poverty that they are unable to support their children.
– poverty rate – below working class. usually Cost of living of less than $4 a day <a href="http://(http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Poverty-in-the-Philippines/chap6.pdf)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Poverty-in-the-Philippines/chap6.pdf)
Poverty threshold for comparison <a href="http://(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)” target=”_blank”>(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)
Overpopulation has an indirect causality that is compounded by all the other negative attributes of poverty which perpetuates it (poverty).
Among all the other factors: overpopulation is one of the major factors that can be alleviated with the least effort (as compared to our educational system, corruption, political monopolies etc. etc.). If you read the report, it compares us to Thailand and Indonesia to provide an idea how effective RH services can do. Indonesia in the report, which has RH and more corrupt that the Phils can pulled it off.
"real simple question. i’m not baiting you. i just wanna know ur opinion, and ur reasoning. "
You will note, boiling down data has severe problems with premise and HUGE gaps of knowledge. This is where most of our conflict stems. I wanted to reduce it, by asking your educational details and pointing to my sources so that you can tell me if you will accept them or not to save us time and effort. Instead explaining every point like I am answering a paper at school is wrong in the sense that, as the other party you could have met me half way. So because you didn't brush up on it and I had to contribute most of the data in this discussion makes it lopsided. This is not how freethinkers works. You read up and draw your own conclusion, you compared notes, but you don't let anyone dictate most of the information.
I'm not sure where you learned to discuss such matters, because your not supposed to take my word for it. My definitions aren't dogmas they are interpretations and you participate by giving me YOUR interpretations as well. Since I had to justify all my answers, and dispite your usage of words conclusively anywone who reads the entirety of this discussion can logically conclude that it is "trollish" and are free to reserve judgement if it is Voluntary or not. That is why #2 was a key question that would save us a lot of grief, since you couldn't contribute much in the discussion except probe the data I brought to he conversation it makes all your motives quite clear for me at least.
Please read up on Overpopulation and Contribute to the discussion. If you really are curious, why not ask the FF forums about it.
testing 123
"then ALL societies in the world are overpopulated. this seems too extreme, and not helpful" GB
Dude, our social inequities are measurable. I didnt say poverty = overpopulation. Our Pyramidal socio-economic structure is different from that of developed countries where their middle and working class are much greater than their poor. I can go hours on the comparisons.
"or maybe u are thinking of this when u think of overpopulation — a thought experiment: what if tomorrow, X people disappear from the philippines. will the average quality of life tomorrow improve for the remaining people?" -GB
Why are you thinking in terms of "removal" of people (the removal of people)? Things don't work that way. What is done in our situation, once family planning and contraception is available for families to have a sustainable size, then the temporary problem of working with the current over-sized families is left to welfare. You attack symptom first, then you can affect a cure for the damage already done, or else the cost of the cure will skyrocket.
"you mention high mortality rates (infant mortality?). how high a mortality rate is sufficient to call a place overpopulated?" – GB
"these arent easy questions, and i dont expect anyone to come in favor or against any single definition.
hence for me, the overpopulation issue is a slippery issue, and it would have been more productive to talk about poverty alleviation during the debate…" — GB
If you want to solve poverty, but isn't an over-sized family unsustainable and causes poverty. Can working class incomes at Php240,000 provide for a family of 7 (assumes 2 working class parents, which is highly optimistic)?
Before we go further, are you interested in learning and reading up about Overpopulation, RHB and a bit of Political Science to understand the problem or is this a an argument for its sake?
24 pages from read this from UP School of Economics. This should get us in the same page.
Also I would like to know your background on the subject so that I know where you're coming from and what I'm going to have to work with. "My job" is to get people aware, but I'm not equipped to educate someone with the material from the ground up. I'm at a disadvantage here, I'm a obviously a rationalist atheist and I need to know how rational the person I'm dealing with is willing to go. "Disagreements" in definitions don't really work well with rationalists.
I highly recommend you attend the 1-4pm open shang ri la meet up in starbucks top floor on Dec 6 (today).
let me respond point by point
1) "our social inequities are measurable. I didnt say poverty = overpopulation."
very well… at what poverty level would overpopulation occur? surely philippine level… so philippine level poverty and higher is "overpopulation"?
2) "Why are you thinking in terms of “removal” of people (the removal of people)?"
because thats what reducing population means : fewer people.
3) "Things don’t work that way. What is done in our situation, once family planning and contraception is available for families to have a sustainable size, then the temporary problem of working with the current over-sized families is left to welfare. "
ah, so reducing future people so that future people have a higher quality of life. the current people are financed using money from people now. this is ok, analogous to what i said.
one observation: future adults (current babies) are a sinkhole of money. but once they've been invested in, they should be productive members of society.
so, if ur willing to spend on current kids — say their education — they should be able to support themselves.
4) "If you want to solve poverty, but isn’t an over-sized family unsustainable and causes poverty."
actually, from the UPSE paper link u provided, the answer is "poverty is complex" and population is one part of it, and only one part.
this is exactly what i said earlier — " it would have been more productive to talk about poverty alleviation during the debate"
as opposed to overpopulation, which is tricky to define, and is only 1 facet to the true beast we need to battle.
this is also the reason why many RH advocates (such as Rep hontiveros video in this site) that the main reason for family planning is to help families control their family size. the implicit argument is that people want fewer kids, but they cant hit their target. this is confirmed (some people report) in surveys…
overpopulation is defined based on this notion of "unwanted pregnancies". this is a moral argument, as well as an economic one.
lastly, you dont have to educate me. i was just wondering about ur notion of overpopulation. like i said, it needs to be defined, as its a slippery notion.
i think i have the knowledge to participate in a discussion on RH. did i give u an impression i could not? i am a college grad. does that info help you? if i told u i was a grade school drop out, how would ur answer be different?
i think i'm very rational. tell me please, when i'm being irrational.
why do disagreements in defintions not work? in order to even discuss, we must first agree on definitions. hence my questions.
i wish i could attend ur meeting. maybe next time.
0) Most Catholic Schools teach the Misinformation regarding Overpopulation because of the Church and not the Scientific bodies that were tasked in drawing the empirical conclusions. So even if you are a College Grad, it automatically doesn't mean that you would understand it. In fact, if you value your College Grad more than personal initiative and desire to find out truth we will have a problem.
1) Most of your questions are answered in the UP study. If searching Overpopulation, you will come up with more helpful sources by typing "population growth". Narrow it down with Sustainable, Poverty, reproduction, reproductive health, etc.
"why do disagreements in defintions not work? in order to even discuss, we must first agree on definitions. hence my questions." – GB
– This is a tactic of arguments to hedge against being wrong on the premise, by appealing to the lack of definition and clarification. But I am working on the most basic and established premises on the first place. I've minimized the use of overly complicated vocabulary (that even I can't follow) and reduced it to the simplest way to put forward my ideas. If I there are any exceptions I will add them to my explanations. If there is an exception that I failed to mention and it is too absurd to be fit in the context of our discussion, please assume it isn't. (highlight the key words and right click it, then search it)
"because thats what reducing population means : fewer people." – GB
Now this a bit of a play with semantics and is distracting to the main points of Overpopulation and RHB.
Reducing people is not the case, it is being able to have sustainable growing population. Overpopulation is not about "reducing" the no. of people or in your philosophy "Future" people instead it is about growing at a sustainable rate that families can afford.
But entertaining your distraction, Do "Future" people have more value than the People living at present suffering?
"overpopulation is defined based on this notion of “unwanted pregnancies”. this is a moral argument, as well as an economic one." – Ok, I'm talking to a religous then?
2 things. Classifying this a Moral and Economic argument. Thinking that RHB has abortion.
By this line of arguing it seems you accept and expect a particular moral view (typically that you're own) to prevail in the "rational". Why use Morality, why Not say a Rational Decision, using science, reason, evidence to determine if a course of action leads to negative effects?
So do you believe that Morality not reason should be used to see what is Good for people and not the Evidence that it what it is?
RHB is about preventing conception and giving the power of a family to plan their child birth. It never supported Abortion, and anyone who even associates it to Abortion is spreading misinformation and possibly ruining the chances of an untold no. of people at a chance to access the RHB.
I'm being led to believe you are a victim of the Catholic School misinformation and misrepresent of the RHB's objectives?
"i think i’m very rational. tell me please, when i’m being irrational." – GB
– Here is a quick way to find out if you are rational or irrational: Will you rather take a ideas of Philosophy, Authority or Theology over the evidence and proof if something is bad or evil for society?
"as opposed to overpopulation, which is tricky to define, and is only 1 facet to the true beast we need to battle.
this is also the reason why many RH advocates (such as Rep hontiveros video in this site) that the main reason for family planning is to help families control their family size. the implicit argument is that people want fewer kids, but they cant hit their target. this is confirmed (some people report) in surveys…"
– Poverty has MANY MANY causes. Apart from Status Quo (which is the Corrupt and Inefficient System), which the strongest influence. RHB is one of the easiest problems to solve working towards eliminating Poverty. Working towards a "realistic" goal, one takes the course of action that has a higher amount of certainty of making an effect NOT just tackling the biggest issue. You have to consider the entire Objective and what resources and time you have at your disposal.
Which brings me to a point of my article: Practical Solutions vs Misinformation and Misrepresentation.
wow. now i'm thrown…
1) "classifying this a Moral and Economic argument. Thinking that RHB has abortion."
huh? saying something is moral doesnt mean RHB is abortion. that doesnt add up.
i have NEVER said RH is about abortion. NEVER.
what makes u claim something that i have NEVER said? please dont do that.
take it easy. it is moral when you are allowing people to expand their freedoms without hurting the freedoms of other people. thats a moral decision.
morality and rational decisionmaking are NOT incompatible.
it is a moral decision to allow people to freely make decisions about their lives, based on whatever criteria they think is important, subject to not hurting the freedoms of others.
2) " Will you rather take a ideas of Philosophy, Authority or Theology over the evidence and proof if something is bad or evil for society?"
wow, this is an entirely different blog post 🙂 but yes, philosophy, theology AND science are all valid, logical fields of study.
maybe not authority… hahaha…
here's why: you need values to make decisions. you need to be able to rank outcomes based on somekind of value system. you need philo or theo to rank outcomes.
3) looks like we agree on the complexity of poverty alleviation. my point was that during the debate, they should have focused on the LARGER notion of poverty alleviation.
4) "This is a tactic of arguments to hedge against being wrong on the premise, by appealing to the lack of definition and clarification. But I am working on the most basic and established premises on the first place."
oops, i wasnt being "tactical". i was curious. i'm sorry if u view questions as strategic. debate isnt about "winning" (we arent competing with each other!), its about ferreting the truth and coming to an understanding.
the lack of definition for "overpopulation" is EXACTLY my point.
the UPSE paper also doesnt have overpopulation as a concept.
YOU mentioned it. hence, i was asking YOU what overpopulation meant.
so lets chat about it…
you say "growing at a sustainable rate that families can afford."
overpopulation then mean the opposite of ur definition.
— unsustainable growth of family size/population
— said growth that they cannot afford…
which brings out some obvious questions:
1) what makes it unsustainable? by webster, it means, its growing now, but one day it will stop. sustainable is a growth that goes indefinitely.
is this what u mean? so ur saying that there will be a crash in population under this unsustainable scenario. yes?
2) if something is growing, how could they not afford it? if they truly couldnt afford it, then it wouldnt be growing. the kid would die first.
i think u mean here is that the standard of living of each child is falling. think of this as "malthusian level of sustenance".
so, i can imagine parts of war/famine ravaged africa that fit this description. i can agree with that.
"there is over population in war-torn/famine ravaged africa"
because it fits both ur criteria — a boom bust cycle in population numbers, and bare-level sustenance level of quality of life.
but does this fit the Philippines?
1) sorry for accusing you of associating abortion. The wording of a specific aspect of reproductive health: "unwanted pregnancies" leads to the question: "What can you do about unwanted pregnancies?" which leads to Abortion. I'm satisfied we nipped that at the bud. You do understand that every politician in the debate associated RHB with abortion by mentioning abortion even tho they did not explicitly say it HAD abortion in it. So when certain wording seems leading to a distracting conclusion I decisively close down the potential erroneous chain of reasoning that can get things even more confusing.
2) It all boils down to what are you willing to trust as a source of credible information: Theology, Philosophy, or Science. Theology and Philosophy are very broad, but I distinguish Science from the other two because only science has practical methods of verification (through empirical method, logic and reason). So in the most simple way of putting it: how much of the information do you get you would rather verify for yourself if you can?
It doesn't need to be all to complex, or filled with exceptions if the other party is not attempting to "shut you down" but maximize communicated ideas. The other party assumes the more reasonable aspect of conclusions, if not they will double check.
3) Given the time and the political constraints of the participants, narrowing it down to RHB is more practical a topic to examine compared to the breadth of Poverty Alleviation.
Notice that all the politicians are more scared of what the Bishops would say about them on their pulpits and their uncertain effect, than the rationality that the Asia Pulse Survey says that about 70% of the population is ASKING for RHB.
"overpopulation then mean the opposite of ur definition.
– unsustainable growth of family size/population
– said growth that they cannot afford…"
My definition of what Over population.. quoting my post
"… to sum it simply, that there is an amount of population that cannot be adequately and sustainably supported. "
How different is it?
Another instance of voluntary information sabotage, a very plain one. Maybe its just a mistake, but the overwhelming pattern of inquiry is getting pretty obvious.
" 1) what makes it unsustainable? by webster, it means, its growing now, but one day it will stop. sustainable is a growth that goes indefinitely."
It is unsustainable because its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources.
Given the context of this question and how I've met you half way understanding your points without "reducio Absurdium" I'm beginning to question if you are doing the same.
"2) if something is growing, how could they not afford it? if they truly couldnt afford it, then it wouldnt be growing. the kid would die first.
i think u mean here is that the standard of living of each child is falling. think of this as “malthusian level of sustenance”. "
It doesn't just start in the action Reproduction. Family begins with the accumulation of resources in order to provide basic necessities and afford a sufficient quality of life. there are plenty of laws that protect family creation: Paternity/Maternity Leaves, tax benefits etc.
Many Factors go into planning a sustainable growth. Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty. Children eat up resources, time, and opportunity cost. So people take actions to prevent a situation that is detrimental to all.
If a basic economic unit, a classic extended family, has the parents, the father/mother side grandparents, their 3 children surviving in a combined household income putting them barely at working class. One child is born, this tips the resources down a notch, Another child, brings the resource down again. This can also be a Single Parent sibling joining the economic unit but whose over all contribution drags down the total resources of the unit per capita.
With diminished resources we have diminished options: health care and effective health, stress, insurance, and more possibly poverty. The resulting limited options raises the chance of: criminal deviance, death, perpetual ill health etc.)
It doesnt work the way you say. You didn't read the UP report, clearly. And clearly you haven't taken your own initiative to study the matter on your won.
Is this some kind of semantic manipulation. You are smart enough to get my points and smart enough to Voluntarily manipulate the context of the questions towards an absurdity you can see for yourself. Which makes me highly suspect of your intentions to Learn or to Troll.
"“there is over population in war-torn/famine ravaged africa”
because it fits both ur criteria — a boom bust cycle in population numbers, and bare-level sustenance level of quality of life.
but does this fit the Philippines?"
Populations have a necessary infrastructure and institutions to support it. These are Markets, Government, and Services. In war torn Africa, these necessities are reduced and they are unable to support a "rate of growth" in the population caused by a downwards spiral of poverty.
We share the same symptoms and mostly the same causes. Overpopulation in War-torn Africa is not that much different from the Philippines, what is fundamentally the same is the social inequity and the downwards spiraling poverty.
Dude, I have to explain every point like I was your professor. Strangely I didn't get my information just from someone's explanation. I dug it up and read current events.
You're smart enough to figure it out yourself, but there is a necessary amount of Basics you need to finish before we continue because I'm repeating various points you should have already taken in school. I'm not pissed at you, I'm pissed at your school in failing to prepare you to be able to understand these concepts.
Example: your concept of unsustainable = symptoms of Death, without even understanding why it is so? This is taught in basic Economics class.
Will you answer my question regarding what you know so that I'm can begin in something more fundamental before going into the more complex iterations?
Do you know your Economics? History? World history? How closely do you follow Political Current Events? Did you study up on Poverty, like its causes and the Political Science basics about it?
Do you know the key concepts of the relationship of Industry, Markets, Agriculture, and Human Development (in Economics)? These one's is where you seem to be lacking. You seem not to understand the basic premises established by these topics to economics?
Personally, school was terrible at teaching me stuff so I don't blame you if these subjects were in your list of priorities in college. Particularly when many of these institution have no understanding of scientific principle while spouting scientific principles.
1) thanks for the apology.
2) lets skip this.
3) discussion of "overpopulation"
first. i'm NOT trying to sabotage you. i dont even KNOW you.
dude, you dont have to educate me, or tell me about all the stuff u know.
i just want to know about ur take on overpopulation. i promise to ask only interesting, non-trivial, clarificatory questions, if needed.
yun lang.
ok. gets ko na. sustainable NOT in the size of the population, but u use this definition:
" its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources."
OK. you futher clarify…
"Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty."
aha! i think THIS is what you define overpopulation as…
if adding a child will cause a family to become poor (enter some definition of poor here), the family is OVERPOPULATED.
OK. this is a defnition for a family. this is an OK definition for a family.
what about the definition for the country? recall this is what the candidates were talking about — "Is the philippines overpopulated?"
how many families that fit the critieria makes the philippines overpopulated?
if not the number/% of families, what then?
another way to put it — how can we translate your definition of family overpopulation to the scale of a whole country.
one way, is to assume the whole country is 1 family. but this goes back to my questions from way earlier…
what poverty rate will make for an overpopulated country?
real simple question. i'm not baiting you. i just wanna know ur opinion, and ur reasoning.
"deny the existence of evidence of concepts that have long been proven, like Overpopulation, "
how about a definiton… what does over population mean? how do you know when a place is over populated?
We're in the internet, lets try googling it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
to sum it simply, that there is an amount of population that cannot be adequately and sustainably supported.
If you want proof and evidence there is research by world bank, IMF, UN, financial institutions and other countries. They also have studies about the Philippines.
Overpopulation and its perpetuation is a factor evaluated by financial institutions. If a country is overpopulated its economic projections are lower because of the problem. In the news there are several reports that came out this year emphasizing on overpopulation and the need for sustainable growth.
Since there is too many to site, I will try to collect these repeatedly issued reports. Otherwise you can just google it or if you don't like to rely on that, email the Representative of multi-national banks about it.
If you were able to watch the debate, many of the Presidentiables echoed "There is no Overpopulation".
yeah, i did watch it on youtube. i think the overpopulation question is not straightforward. from the wiki u sent:
" where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat."
this definition needs to be defined further, and its applicability to RP is not clear.
your definition too faces a similar problem: "that there is an amount of population that cannot be adequately and sustainably supported."
by your definition, there would be over population only if people were dying coz they couldnt feed themselves. surely this is NOT the case…
i think the descriptor should be poverty. there is no doubt that there is poverty. over population is a much slippier concept.
or, instead of poverty, we can define over population as: a country is over populated if, by removing some people, the standard of living for those that remain would rise (economic growth). but again, thats not the overpopulation definition on wiki..
Even govt subsidized contraceptives programs, such as RH bill, dont rely on the "overpopulation" idea (i.e. carrying capacity, etc). it relies on the notion of freedom to control family size.
sustainably supported.”
Your definition of inadequate support and sustainability requires death as an outcome. While the general undersanding of overpopulation is is lower quality of life resulting from poverty, social inequity, limited access to heatlth care, and others.
Which also results to higher mortality rate indirectly because of the resulting poverty.
Have you looked into other data GabbyD about our poverty, or are you planning to argu without any premise found outside the article?
ok. so overpopulation is define via quality of life. not the biological issue of carrying capacity.
i can accept that. next issue: at what poverty level makes one overpopulated?
is any poverty level equivalent to overpopulation?
then ALL societies in the world are overpopulated. this seems too extreme, and not helpful.
you mention high mortality rates (infant mortality?). how high a mortality rate is sufficient to call a place overpopulated?
or maybe u are thinking of this when u think of overpopulation — a thought experiment: what if tomorrow, X people disappear from the philippines. will the average quality of life tomorrow improve for the remaining people?
is this what u are thinking of?
these arent easy questions, and i dont expect anyone to come in favor or against any single definition.
hence for me, the overpopulation issue is a slippery issue, and it would have been more productive to talk about poverty alleviation during the debate…
"These “critical thinkers” often engage in debates as a way to make them think they are actually contributing when in reality they are doing the opposite. They are “teaching the Controversy” and mixing rotten with the good data"
maybe you should clarify – are you discussing politicians or philosophers in general there?
I'm not speaking generally, just pointing out these traits and leave it up to the reader to identify the negative stances on their own. Reflecting "If I'm being suckered into the denial" was my intent.
The reaction to "those" critical thinkers is an reaction to an observed flaw that makes one immediately question one's own actions and consistency.